For 3 days in a row, I walked to the 201/202 bus stop from my place, which is about 1.2 miles roundtrip. You may be thinking, "so what?" However, for me, it is quite an achievement. For the past 2 years I have been lying down about 22~23 hours a day in pain; just breathing itself was unbearable.
I have come far within last 6 months. Taking a long break in S. Korea was the best choice I made in last 2.5 years, haha. I'm trying to sit and walk around as much as I can, and reduce the time I'm lying down. I have become really good at lying down; it's all I did for a while. Now, I sit at least for an hour and review chem for the chem 7L, because it has been 2 years since I did any gen. chem work. School is starting in 9 days and I'm trying to get used to being active. It is hard, but I have to do it.
This is the point in my life in which I either wither away or thrive. If I cannot handle 5 classes (3 of them being labs, 4~6 hours/day, oh fck me...) and graduate this summer, I really wouldn't be able to survive in thie capitalistic society. The only skill (if you could call it that) is that I can speak English... that's it. A 23 year old male/man who can speak english with no college degree; that isn't very useful.
Anyways, I have lost 2.5 years due to sever pain. I have to be as effecient as possible from now on, no matter how much it hurts to breathe. I will most likely live with this condition, but what can I do other than to accept it? Be strong Jin, be strong. Keep going no matter what.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Saturday, December 21, 2013
2013 is ending soon...
It has been over 3 years since my last blog. In that period of time, I have gotten my green card so I'm no longer undocumented (good thing!). However, I got a severe injury on 6/19/2011 which progressed into a debilitating chronic pain (affected my breathing) that ruined my life...
I miss being able to surf; actually I just miss being able to handle life. I cannot do much due to pain. Just sitting is excruciatingly painful; anything other than lying down is pain for me. I stopped seeing friends since I was so miserable in pain; I now have handful of people I contact sometimes; once a month? jesus, I am alone. I cannot commute to school since it is so painful to just move around. I spend most of my time lying down, reading kindle since sitting is also painful after several minutes. But I grit my teeth and try to lengthen the total time I can spend walking around and sitting to get stuff done. I am very afraid of what I will be able to do from now on. I am 23 year old; I'm not sure if I can even complete 3 lab classes needed to graduate since they are 5 hours long. Can I even hold down a job? How will I function in a society?
I look completely normal on the outside; people have hard time believing me when I tell them that I have severe chronic pain and lie down. They think that I'm crazy... which is partially true since the pain does drive me crazy.
I have recently moved to a new address to prep for school... I haven't told the new housemates/landlord about my physical condition since it will affect the way they treat me/look at me. Since it is a very quiet and private place, and we rarely hang out, I have decided to not tell them and keep our relationship as normal as possible. Without them judging me or thinking ahead to not bother me because of the pain. I had sam gyup sal with two guys; it was a good time but also a torture as I had trouble eating too much due to pain. It was a labor to keep chewing the meat; I was caring about the mechanism of chewing and swalloing instead of tasting the meat, since the pain made me focus on it. God, I'm blabbering too much.
Even though I took 5.5 month break in S. Korea, I haven't healed as much as I wanted. Before I went back, I was really suffering; because the pain was so bad that it scared me to not move as much as possible, my overall physical condition deteriorated.
I now know that this pain could most likely be permanent, so I might as well as move as much as possible to keep myself in shape. As idiotic/weird as it sounds like, there is a distinction between my chronic pain for breathing vs overall physical condition. I need to move around, sit, and live life despite the fact that it will hurt way more than if I just lied down to minimize breathing movements. It is really hard to explain it right now, so I will need to collect myself and explain it.
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